Hey friend! Have fun exploring Q&A, but in order to ask your own
questions, comment, or give thumbs up, you need to be logged in to your
Moz Pro account.
You can also earn access by receiving 500
MozPoints
from participating in YouMoz and the Moz Blog!

Vanity Google+ URL

If a vanity Google+ URL has a local town associated with it, will it show up in the local results for that town only and nowhere else?

My client is on page 1 for an organic search for specific term + area but not on the local results too

e.g. property agent area

But if we specifiy property agent and local town (the one on his vanity Google+ URL) he is found on both organic and local listings. We want him to be found on both organic and local for the property agent area search. His website has address details:

local town (the one on his Google+ URL),

Area,

UK

So you see, the local town is within an area.

Any ideas why this is so? On the local results for the area search, Google lists care homes and other types of businesses etc in the area when there are no other property agents to list- why not list my clients website as it is relevant to that search? Has he narrowed it too much by using the local town in his Google+ URL or is that too simple an explanation?

13 Responses

It’s a complex question with no definitive answer at the moment I believe. Momentarily all we have to go on is our own observation. I try my best as I write blogs on the subject and I’ll be happy to share my personal idea’s on this with you. First of all lets us establish sort of little synopsis for terminology used. some designations in the terms used is necessary as the devil is in the details:

- ‘A vanity URL with the city on it’. You mean a Google+ custom url with the name of the city in the readable text part of the url like: plus.google.com/+agency(TLD)city?- Property agent + local town EQUALS organic search not being local?- Property agent + near + hometown EQUALS organic + local search?- You assume that that text in a custom Google+ url is a ranking factor in google?

Well if so then this is my 20ct. It is vastly more complex yet surprisingly easy to rank for once you know which elements of (google) pages rank for what sort of search types. I call the Google My Business listing a local page which is short for Google local page and it consists of a company listing with specific properties like address and opening hours stored in the Google My Business directory which actually is a vertical search column for addresses linked to coordinates in the coordinates column Maps.

The business directory of google are the company listings and those rank when verified on address. Then they rank on business name most strongly when it’s a semantic search like: property agent near hometown. This triggers a combined search where the Maps and Google My Business listing are sort of leading ranking factors. The query parameter near is a 1-on-1 instruction for google to search for an entity type business where the question is where it is located. The term property agent is a symantic construct as well. It is a category in the business listing and in combination with near and a city then google constructS the following query: get business entities in category property agents located in the greater city area of hometown.

When you leave out the word near it changes the vertical to Google Search instead of Maps (so to say). In the first example the business name is the 1 factor that is ranked on (that we can significantly influence). Google allows one generic descriptor in this name field (hint!). When you leave it out (near) then it’s back to old fashion onpage and link metrics.

PS. To get listed as place filler in case of lack of property agents you need some reviews via the Google+ page that is associated with Google My Business. Again look at the query Marketing advice near Apeldoorn and then in the top reviews or whatever that box on the top left is called. Fact: asked for those REAL reviews from real people and got them overnight the same as the instant ranking thereafter for the queries with near in it.

Thanks for your extensive help. The vanity url is Google.Com/mypropertycompanytown

To clear up my confusing query:

The searches we are running do not have "near" in them.

Property agent +town=local results and organic

Property agent+ area= organic only

This guy has 11 genuine reviews on google +. The local town is in the geographical area of search. Google runs out of property agents to display on the area local search yet lists other types of businesses and not his.

Your welcome. Like to share some of this stuff sometimes especially if it's helpful and appreciated. I also get very good feedback and insights from comments so it's a win/win I like to think.

It could be a lot of things. I recommend that you check all bases before moving on and assuming it's Google's blackbox and it's not meant to be understood. Bases:

Is it a real genuine Google+ local page?(look for address, opening hours etc)Is it really associated with the right company?Verified on address?No duplicates for this listing (on address and or name and town ie)?(is reason to demote or deactivate the listing and not showing live for local searches)Is the local +page generated with Google My Company?Is the local +page connected with rel=publisher to website and verified?Does the business name contain the primary keyword as descriptor (suffix to business name)Do other high authority listings contain similar information for company name, city and tel. number?Does the +page show opening hours (mandatory and address but only city for business that only visit customers and have no office for customers to want to visit?)

Well this what came to mind for the bases and are all of importance.

Hope that this helps. If not you can send me a PM via moz with the url of the page and I'l be glad to look at it if you like (no strings attached).

I don't see the Google+ vanity URL having an affect on showing up, or having additional positive effects on your ranking. That being said, if your domain and all citation sites have the service provided (keyword) and location in them, I can see that as being highly effective. If it was that easy to rank for custom Google+ URL's, this could be exploited very easily and Google knows it.

If all the rest of the items match up, it could. If your are going to target a higher ranking based on exact match and keyword match techniques, one thing that will help tremendously is consistancy. Don't make it harder for Google to figure out who you are, what you do, and where you do it

Agreed. I use my own method which I call Businessalignment for on and offline business which describes this process for Dutch companies. Works like a charm, idiot proof and not economically viable to copy for the technically skilled borderline criminal seo that look for the loophole alone instead of the grand scheme and sustainability in the long run. Something like that you mean?

To bad moz local is not available in the Netherlands but I get around.

I have a nice and valued guide to optimizing google my business that I published in Dutch and am translating to English. Hope to publish it here some time soon if they let me that is:) This is the raw translation with google translate but it reads ok already I think? If there was only more time )

ha ha this is hysterical: I use an example of a optimization project for local search. It's an marina and in Dutch it is: 'jacht huren near Makkum' which google translate translated to 'rent Yacht near Makkum'. Just try to input this query into google. I'm sometimes scare myself :-) Exact match in English for my set out applied method done in Dutch. This is new because when I set it up I already tested this so it's not luck so to say. And see how the suffix descriptor yacht rental delivers what I promised: marina + home town or rent yacht + marina city. I should have asked more for this:) O yeah it's Alpha Sail that I done it for. The company name for the marina.

Hey friend! Have fun exploring Q&A, but in order to ask your own
questions, comment, or give thumbs up, you need to be logged in to your
Moz Pro account.
You can also earn access by receiving 500
MozPoints
from participating in YouMoz and the Moz Blog!
Learn more.